


The Question She Never Asked

by PhoenixMorningstar



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Abandonment, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Chloe Decker Needs A Hug, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Hurt Chloe Decker, POV Chloe Decker, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 04 Finale, Sad Chloe Decker, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:53:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22079515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixMorningstar/pseuds/PhoenixMorningstar
Summary: In which Chloe Decker continues her life with the sudden absence of her partner, wishing she'd gotten the answer to one Devil-related question before he left.Will you hear me, if I pray to you?
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 11
Kudos: 91





	The Question She Never Asked

**Author's Note:**

> So this was just a random thought that popped into my head one day after a rewatch as I wait impatiently for season 5 when I got hit with the thought on if he could be prayed to or not. It intrigued me and this is what came of it.
> 
> Also forewarning that this is largely unedited, so forgive any minor errors, please.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it!! Comments, kudos and feedback are greatly appreciated! Happy, angsty reading :)

There's a question she never asked him.

Millions of questions lay unspoken on her tongue. Unheard and unanswered and doomed to forever be so. They sit trapped within her, never to pass the bars of her teeth to reach the sanctuary of his ears, where they would be laid to rest. 

There's millions of thousands of possible questions she could ask -- she never truly grilled him for what he was -- but there's only one question that truly burns for an answer, that she agonizes over. A question that races through her mind in an endless loop because it is one she will never have an answer to. In his absence, permanent and endless and despairing, it is the only question that she wishes she got an answer to. 

_Will you hear me, if I pray to you?_

She knows prayers exist, of course, that she could clasp her hands and have her words delivered to angels up in the Silver City. She remembers catching Lucifer praying in the corner of Ella's lab and him saying that was how he called Amenadiel, admitting to it, in a time where she hadn't believed him. She knows it's real -- praying -- but does it still work with him, the way it does with his angelic siblings who haven't fallen from grace? Would moving on from his vacancy be easier if she didn't know the truth, if she believed in some other lie that was easier to swallow? If he was simply dead and not ruling, a tragic misfortune instead of a heartbreaking choice? 

She doesn't know. 

Sometimes, she catches herself wishing she didn't know. This would be easier in a way if he was dead because than at least, he hadn't chosen to leave (or his choice would have made him heroic in a way that wasn't quite so bitter). It was a choice, in the end. A hard, grueling, heartbreaking, crushing choice, but a choice nonetheless. 

Even if him leaving was the only way to save Earth, humanity, he still chose to leave. She can understand the reason why he left, but she cannot pretend it wipes away all of the hurt. 

He had still left her, his hand on her cheek with a roundabout admission of his love for her -- something that was quite obvious now, in hindsight, but that was a colossal achievement for him to _say_ it. Feeling it had been difficult for him, a long journey he'd reached the end of despite his tendency to wander off path and try to ignore it, and saying it was harder. 

Their buildup to their confession and subsequent end was far from romantic. It is only the little things that pushed them over the line and away from being just friends. It is not ideal, how they started, how it took _years_ just to get to the confession stage where they admit that there was something real between them, but she loved him anyway. She fell for him anyway. 

Marcus comes to her mind now, how she'd pushed aside Lucifer -- for all his joys, he'd left her a thousand times and she didn't want to be left standing in the dust again -- to chase after something she knew wasn't real, forcing herself to feel things she didn't really feel. She wanted to feel them, wanted to love someone who loved her, who was willing to move at her pace, who put her first, who listened and cared for her opinions, who wouldn't leave her standing alone in the dust again. 

And then -- and then his true colors had come shattering through the stained glass she'd placed over him, rose colored and too much, too fast, for the both of them even though he'd promised her otherwise.

_Stop. I can't do this._

_You're just making this too hard._

_It's not worth it._

And suddenly her kind, stable Lieutenant was just as bad as the Devil himself. Worse, maybe, because Lucifer never made promises he couldn't keep or said that she wasn't worth the effort of building a relationship with. In fact, he'd said the opposite. That _he_ was the one who wasn't worth it, that she was too good for him. Having a relationship with him was a game of tug of war between his love for her and his hate of himself. 

Because he did, somehow. 

She'd pegged him as a narcissist the day she'd met him, when he drank and played the piano after having a friend die before him. It was disbelieving that the opposite was true and her heart had dropped when he'd admitted so lightly to her in the station, like he was boasting about finally solving a puzzle he'd been aching over. 

He'd smiled brightly, like he'd just told another lewd joke themed around their current investigation, the most recent body, but he hadn't. No. He'd admitted his hatred of himself like he told her anything else. Like it wasn't a _problem_. 

It was a massive problem and it had hurt that he didn't _see_ that. 

Despite knowing the truth, she doesn't see how he could hate himself. Believing that he was Satan was somehow easier than believing that his confidence was just another display of his, another show, another wall he built to protect himself. He was the devil, yes, ruler of Hell and disobedience incarnate. Nothing could refute that. But he's only ever killed one human, despite the wide spread belief that he's slaughtered billions. Just one. Cain, the first murderer (her kind, stable Lieutenant was anything but, it turns out). He had killed that one human for her. 

Now she doesn't get to ask him anymore questions. She doesn't get to grill him and figure out which kinds of questions would make him squirm, which he play off, which he would be heartbreakingly honest with. All she has is her memory and the empty vial burning in her purse like it's made of acid. It might as well have been, for the hole it burns into her love. The vial, the poison. Those unpleasant memories that she won't be able to forget. 

His face when she'd said " _for a moment, I was working with him to send you back to hell_." For all his talent at playing the carefree playboy and hiding his hurt, he hadn't been able to mask that. 

She should throw away the vial, she knows, but it's a reminder of him. Proof that he was here even if it was also proof that she hurt him. There's LUX, of course, now in Maze's hands, but that hurts too much. The one time she'd tried to return, after she'd managed to drag herself away and abandon any hope that this was just a horrid nightmare, she'd burst into tears again. She'd rather face her betrayal of him than to go back to the place where he left her. She didn't try to go back again, won't. 

Later, now, she realizes the full gravity of what she did. She'd lied, led him to believe something that wasn't true, everything that he hoped for. She remembers his words when she held an axe blade to his chest. _"Yes. Don't you know that by now, Detective?"_ He looked so heartbroken, than, so devastated that she didn't know that he'd sacrifice himself for her. 

She's sure that the pain he felt from her betrayal was worse. 

It beats at her, a constant cacophony in the back of her mind that never ends. " _Liar_ ," it says, dripping venom into her skull. " _Betrayer. Deceiver_." 

Marcus wasn't the only one who was worse than the Devil. She had tricked him, planned to send him back into the prison he'd been cast into by his father. She'd lied with malicious intent when lying is something he doesn't do. 

Her eyes fall shut, hands clasped together and she pretends that it is. His warmth, his hands. It's not. It never will be again because of what she did, but she can pretend. She can pretend that what she did to him isn't worse than anything he's ever done. 

He wasn't cruel. He did the worst of things, yes, but only with honorable intentions or with a blade to his neck. She had worked against him because she was afraid. 

She was afraid and he's gone and it's all her fault. 

At first, the worst moments are many, great tall things that beat at her one after another and not allowing her any time to breathe. Every moment is bad at first, empty. Going to work alone, slotting the clues together without the backdrop of his jokes and even Ella is subdued some, with his departure. She gets a warm hug that first day back and it feels empty because it isn't his, 

Not that he'd hugged her much, but still -- it wasn't his when all she wanted was him. 

She still has to bite back tears and the lump in her throat when Trixie asks about Lucifer and where he is and why he hasn't stopped by and -- and those are the moments when she wishes Trixie wasn't so infatuated with him. It's hard keeping a neutral face when she looks up with her puppy dog eyes and her pouted lip and her little voice when shes trying to make breakfast going, "I miss Lucifer."

Her reaction, always, is to kiss her daughter's head, blinking back tears and keeping them from her sight, murmuring a soft, "me too, baby, me too," while she tries to keep her voice steady. 

It breaks her heart even more when Trixie hurts over his disappearance. Watching how he interacted with her had been a mix of exasperating and adorable that she misses, now. Especially the smile that Trixie always reserved for him, bright and toothy and innocent and hopelessly lost along with the echo of 'Detective' fading from her ears and becoming just another word. He had made it more but that was faltering and dying without him there to resuscitate it. 

Life went on. 

That's something she hates, the fact everything just kept on moving after he left like her world didn't just get struck by a meteor determined to cause extinction. It didn't help that she felt like she was the only one who was mourning his absence and not just missing him. Of course, she's one of the few that knows he won't return and that he didn't just fly to Vegas or Rome or Paris or somewhere to get drunk and sleep around. 

Everyone thought that he'd return eventually. That this was just another stint of him disappearing for a few weeks before he comes back acting like nothing had happened. 

It takes a couple months before they realize he isn't coming back. Dan's happy, relieved. He whispers to coworkers that aren't her about how it's a good thing and how he hopes he isn't coming back. He tamps back his joy around her, acts sorry and he is -- but only because it hurts her and he doesn't want to be insensitive. But she sees him whisper when she isn't looking and she knows. He's happy Lucifer's gone. 

His life without him was easier. Simpler and happier. All Lucifer had been to him was a nuisance while he had been _everything_ to Chloe. Good and bad. 

It wasn't fair. Everyone rejoiced over his departure or quickly moved on from it. Everyone except for her. 

She felt like she was stuck on his balcony, him before her with a soft, sad face and his wings unfurled. His hand on her cheek as he abstractly tells her that she was his first love. Not Eve, who was his first in so many things -- his first human, woman, partner. His first act of true rebellion against his father, his first move as Hell's king. Eve was his first. But not his first love, somehow. 

That honor was hers. 

He loved _her_. Out of the millions of people he slept with, women and men and myth alike, she was the one he chose to love. Her, the one person in LA who hadn't fallen for his pretty face and otherworldly powers of desire. The one person he hadn't managed to bring into bed. Who had _refused_ when she came over drunk and hurt, who had wanted her, but not at the price of not having her consent. 

He loved her and because he did -- _when the Devil walks the Earth and finds his first love, evil shall be released_ \-- he was gone. 

Dead, for all it mattered to her. He'd gone to hell -- actual, literal hell -- and he wasn't planning to return. He said he wasn't, that he _couldn't_ , and Lucifer -- Lucifer doesn't lie. If there's anything she knows about him, it's that. 

She doesn't even have a contradiction to rely on -- he never told her that he would stay, not when they were just partners, not when they'd kissed and been more for a few hours, not when he'd returned from Vegas with a wife after she'd been poisoned. He never said that he would stay. But him saying that he was leaving, never returning, those words were engraved in her head, disheartening. 

She wishes for the knowledge on if he can hear her prayers, nothing more. She should be wishing for _him_ she knows. His return, his presence, his love. But Lucifer doesn't lie and her praying for his return would be her praying for his broken honor and that's not something she wants to be responsible for. Not when he hates himself for the horrid, unfair reputation he did absolutely nothing to earn. 

If he were to actually do something -- break his _millennia_ of truth -- she doesn't think he could forgive himself so easily, if he manages to at all. It was difficult the first time. When believing the opinions of billions of humans about him and his past and his corrupted nature was easier than believing what he knew to be true, but lying would be worse. He'd begrudgingly agreed with some of their points, their harshest judgements, but he never lied, not even then. He let them believe their delusions and accepted the ones that weren't blatantly untrue. 

His truth is something he takes pride in. Something he takes genuine offense to when it's called into question. Breaking his honor is breaking his pride and Chloe has no desire to see a broken Lucifer. He's already been broken once -- whipping wind, twin scars and a scathing betrayal. That was when he was young (sort of, if _young_ is something an angel could be). Now, after his fall and rebirth and rebuilding, after he finally grew to be comfortable in his own skin, his breaking would probably be much worse. 

At the very least, his best coping mechanism (blaming it on his father, his brothers, his sisters, his mother, who had stood and watched), wouldn't hold or help because it would be his choice. He'd grip his honor in his hands, shaking, and shatter it with his will. His free will. He won't willingly break his promises, his words, his truth. 

Not when he would have to make the conscious decision to do so, when there was no one else for him to pin blame on. No loopholes to exploit because he was so careful when tying that knot. When he frayed the rope to threads, with double-ended words, covering the hurt with vagueness, never naming the sharpest point. 

Those words haunt her. An endless echo, never diminishing. A scratched record. A spinning roller coaster that only dips. 

_"I have to go back."_

_"They must have a King."_

_"Goodbye."_

So his return isn't what she prays for, even if secretly (well, not secretly, but _privately_ ) that's what she really wants. What she _desires_ more than anything. It's what she'd say of he asked and his mojo worked. Him. She wants him. 

But since he isn't something she can have, not anymore, that was an opportunity she spent years missing out on, she prays for the knowledge on if he can hear her or not. She prays and she hopes and she asks, eventually. When she remembers who his brother is. 

Amenadiel could solve everything. Answer her question, at least. 

She doesn't feel as guilty as she should for bothering him, taking him from his newborn son he'd almost lost to bring her peace of mind, something he isn't required to give. They weren't close and he owes her nothing, certainly not the secrets of the Silver City and the angels created within it. Family secrets. 

Lucifer was always so forthcoming with those, but Amenadiel has every right to not say a word. for once, for the sake of her sanity and knowledge, she hopes he takes pity on her. If only for a second. 

It appears he does. She's no expert in deciphering his expressions, but she's seen enough families of victims to recognize the sad glint in his eyes, the somber slope and pinch of his features. That's before she says anything. Before Lucifer even enters the conversation. She's regretting her wish for his pity, if it is undying and never ending. It will be useful, to guilt out answers if he won't freely give them, but it hardens and sinks her gut with every second he shows it. 

"I... I have a question about angels," she says hesitantly, remembering the time he spoke of her father's pride, hopes his generosity stays when she asks for it first. 

He frowns a little, pinched brow, but he doesn't shut her down. "What is it?" His deep voice grumbles with concern. It's been weeks since she started to avoid him and his family -- not to hurt them, but because seeing them hurt. They were reminders and every reminder was like swallowing a burning coal. She hasn't tried to ask any heaven or Lucifer related questions before. 

"Lu... Your brother," she chokes out, finding the syllables of his name too heavy and twisting for her to say, "can he hear prayers?" 

His mouth parts to answer, before he pauses and shuts it. Perplexion warps his expression, mind churning over her question. She doesn't like how it's something he has to think about. It should be a simple yes or no. 

"I... I am not sure." 

Chloe struggles to keep her face blank, to hide the sting. She's good enough at it to be a good detective and interrogator but she's not good enough to fool an angel. 

He tries to elaborate, explain the logistics of praying concerning Lucifer. "No one prays to him," he says, and there feels like there's an emotion lurking in the deep rumble of it, but his face is blank. "No one ever has. He fell before Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden." 

"But he's an angel," Chloe presses. "Even if no one prayed to him at the start of creation," how _weird_ it is to say that, "it doesn't mean no one has ever tried." 

He seems to think on her words. "He has never mentioned it. Not even from his cultish admirers. I don't think anyone prays to him in the normal sense. He is the King of Hell, remember." 

His answers answer nothing. The only thing of substance that he says is that no one prays to him. Of all the angels, Lucifer isn't one mortals turn to to fix their problems. Her heart sinks. Talking to Amenadiel had been a waste of time. 

Her goodbye and thanks come out a little bitter, but he stops her as she tries to leave, give some mindless pleasantries to Linda and Charlie before she retreats back into the fog of her life and her mindless praying. 

Even if no one has prayed to him before, she prays. She does. All she wanted to know was if he could hear it, but she couldn't admit that that was why she was asking. She doesn't want to admit that she's only ever prayed to the broken son. 

"Wait." She turns back and sees conflict on his face. "You have proven to be an exception for many things regarding him. There is no telling if you're an exception to this, too." 

She has to stifle the laugh bubbling in her throat. He'd just turned his 'probably not' into a 'who the hell knows'. Pun probably not intended. 

She hates that he only left her with more questions. That she came to him with one question which she thought to be simple, except it wasn't because she had to ask. She doubted that the Devil could hear angel prayers. Unmeaningly, she had put him on a different pedestal to all of his siblings, accepting that they could it without thought, but doubting his ability to do the same just because he had rebelled. She had doubted him. The realization sits on her tongue, sour and acidic and she thinks that it is what the vial would have tasted like if she'd managed to slip it's contents into his wine that night. 

That's what she wants to think, but she knows the only thing he would have tasted was betrayal. He trusted her and she had worked to break it but she'd held back on the final blow. Because his music was too loud and she had jumped. If she hadn't -- if his music wasn't so loud, he'd still be in Hell, but it wouldn't have been his choice. 

This outcome, him choosing, is better. At least she knew he loved her. It was the only thing that kept the kernel of hope in her chest from dying. Surely, even if he meant to stay in Hell for eternity, he couldn't leave her to die without doing something about it. Though, she's not sure how he'd learn that she was dead, so it would probably be easy. 

Unless she went to Hell. She doesn't see him ignoring her if he finds her in his own domain, in his realm of torture and despair. 

Amenadiel thinks about Chloe's question for a while after she leaves, wondering the same thing for himself. His own curiosity. It doesn't take long for him to realize that he probably doesn't see himself as being _worthy_ of being prayed to and that that could be the reason why he hears nothing. His subconscious could be what's keeping him from the begging, even the one he loves who's begging for _him_. 

There is no way to know if he hears prayers or not. Amenadiel doesn't want to disrupt him by dropping by, doesn't particularly want to drop by, even if it means sacrificing knowledge. Lucifer is an anomaly among angels, of all the siblings. No one knows how the rules apply to him. 

He doubts that he does because its exactly the sort of thing he would complain about. It was a tie to their Father, after all, a reminder like the wings he tore from his back. 

He doesn't tell Chloe his doubt. He thinks it's better for her to hold some modicum of hope than to have it snuffed out by evidence that may be false. She was a factual person, and while there was hearsay, there wasn't any hard facts. There was a chance, slim, that he could hear her, if only because it's her that's praying, 

There's only logistics that offer nothing concrete and support her hopefully so, but despairingly, probably not. She wants him to hear her -- has to focus not to say _need_ because she doesn't need him, doesn't need anyone except her daughter -- and it is easier for her to believe that he does if she does so blindly. 

She hopes that if he hears her praying, it will crack at his resolution, and he'll find another way to keep Hell separate from Earth other than by leading a people he despises. Leading them without a real choice, being forced. 

It is almost easy to forget that Hell represents everything sour about his past to him. It is the place he was banished to when he didn't follow orders and it is the place he was forced to make into a home in order to ensure his survival and it was the place he was forced to rule over. He didn't ask to be King, especially when it made him an outcast among his own kingdom. 

The Devil is many things, but a demon is not one of them. At the end of day, demons are all that he rules over. They were crafted from evil, bloodlust and hate, things that he wasn't made with. He may have fallen, may not be beloved any longer, but he was still an angel and angels were crafted from love and light and purity. He was nothing like them and he couldn't fool them into believing he was. He was different and alone and being in power didn't make up for that. Especially when he was the only one of his kind there. 

His fellow fallers weren't bound to the throne like he was. They fluttered around on Earth, a nuisance minor enough to not need godly intervention, while he was quickly intercepted by a sibling when he tried to do the same. He was left to his throne, both by those who had cast him there and those who crashed to the bottom with him. 

He was abandoned there. 

If he hears her, maybe he'll tie something good to it. Maybe it'll infuse him with hope, remind him that he has people (and an angel and demon) who care about him. Make him realize that he hasn't been abandoned, not this time, and that he has a place to escape to, with people who will accept him. Maybe her prayers can motivate and knock him from his spire and up to Earth, to her. 

It's a foolish hope. He made his choice and he usually stuck by his choices. However ridiculous or heartbreaking they might be. He was stubborn, following through his bad choices, even if the consequences almost always brought him back to his prison, his hell. His place of trauma. 

Chloe Decker is not a foolish person, but in this case, in the shadow of realizing that angels and demons exist, she grants herself a pass. Her friend's son was half-angel and her other friend was a demon. Once, that had been things of religion and fairytale, but it was real so she holds her foolish hope because the very existence of them would be considered a miracle to some and maybe, if she prays hard and long enough, she will be granted her own. A way for him to come back. 

So, before bed, she drops to her knees and prays that one day she will get a chance to kiss Lucifer without it being followed by some tragedy that separates them. Just a kiss. Just him. She tells him encouraging, sweet words because even if he's gone, his self-hate rings in her head and he has no one to turn to. Not Linda, who's trapped on Earth and Heaven-bound. Not Maze, living a human's life and away from her old hunting grounds, not at his side as she usually was, when he was there. Not Amenadiel, content on Earth and raising his son happily. 

She realizes that this is the first time he has been truly alone there. 

If for nothing else. she prays and hopes that her words are enough of a lifeline for him. She prays and she continues her life and she loves him from afar, the only way she can. Everything continues and she learns to go back to normal, except for that question still banging around in her mind, spitting and fuming and undying. 

She still wishes that she'd gotten a chance to ask him so it wouldn't be plaguing her for the rest of eternity. It's not an answer she can find anywhere except Hell's throne and that is a place she will never be. 

It is the question she will never have answered. 


End file.
